Safe shutdown of a virtual environment (with SAN)

[Anonymous user]

I'm working on a safe shutdown for a virtual environment. I've got no problem with the scripting side of shutting things down, but I'm a little lost on the details of the APC Network shutdown software. I'm working with a APC Matrix 5000 UPS, the Network shutdown software, and 14min of runtime.

In my plan I need the shutdown to go as follows:
1. VS' will shutdown after 5min of power loss, SAN's RAM cache will be disabled.
2. Hardware nodes will be shutdown after VS' shutdown is complete.
3. SAN service will stop and SAN server will be shutdown when battery close to empty (5min till empty)

Seems simple enough to me, but I can't figure out how to get the time line right in the APC network shutdown software. i.e. batter discharged means what? The battery is dead, or the battery is close to dead? If close how close etc.

Anyone have some tips for me?

[BillP]

In my plan I need the shutdown to go as follows:

1. VS' will shutdown after 5min of power loss, SAN's RAM cache will be disabled.
You'd probably want to use the event "UPS: On Battery." You can configure this event to either begin a shutdown on the VS' after the event has lasted for 300 seconds (since PCNS works in seconds) and THEN run a command file to disable the RAM cache (if thats how you disable it - via command file), or upon shutdown of the VS' tell it to run a command file. Depends on how long that command file takes to run, which is also a value that you input.
2. Hardware nodes will be shutdown after VS' shutdown is complete.
Depending on how long step one takes, then you can configure the "UPS: On Battery" event the same way, but just adjust the "after the event has lasted this long" field.
3. SAN service will stop and SAN server will be shutdown when battery close to empty (5min till empty)
You will need something to tell the SAN server to shut down - which I am assuming is a command file being run from one of the PCNS clients - so you can run the command file from when one of the hardware nodes shutsdown or something.

hope this helps a bit. batteries discharged is a flakier type of event than UPS on battery since it could happen in a couple of different situations.

let me know if you have any other questions.

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

In the end I set it up like this:

1. Condition - UPS: On Battery (power fails)
Windows based SAN: After 3min cache will be disabled (power_lost.bat)
Virtual environment manager: After 5min VS' will be shutdown via script (vsstop.bat)

2. Condition - Runtime Exceeded (5min remaining power)
Virtual environment manager: Immediately shutdown nodes via script (nodestop.bat), 120 seconds later OS will shutdown server (Virtual environment manager)
Windows based SAN: After 2min SAN Melody service is stopped (batt_low.bat), 90 seconds later OS will shutdown server (Windows based SAN)